Gang-linked crash hurts officers
Rock Machine allies arrested after run-in
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/08/2011 (5149 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Police have arrested two associates of the Rock Machine gang after a crash that sent three officers to hospital.
The three officers were hurt in a collision Tuesday at about 12:30 a.m. after officers tried to stop a Dodge Avenger near Antrim Road and Rockspur Street, part of a police investigation of an ongoing biker-gang battle that’s simmered throughout the summer.
Police said the Avenger made “quick evasive manoeuvres” that caused the crash.
After the Avenger allegedly hit two marked police cruisers and an unmarked truck, police took two men and a woman into custody and seized a loaded handgun.
Two men the police arrested have ties to the Rock Machine biker gang, said a source, though police would not specify how Tuesday’s vehicle chase was tied to gangs.
Officers from the organized crime unit, the tactical support team and canine unit were involved in the traffic stop.
“Getting into the specifics of that investigation is not something I am prepared to do, nor does it provide the public with any information that we haven’t already provided them,” said Winnipeg Police Service spokeswoman Const. Natalie Aitken, who said the investigation has been underway since mid-July.
Aitken said police have taken “very proactive, very aggressive measures” in an ongoing gang conflict.
“There’s been a number of violent incidents that have occurred in our city and that is something that’s not going to be tolerated,” she said.
Aitken said the Avenger caused the crash. “I don’t think our officers ever have the luxury of dealing with any routine traffic stop anymore,” she said.
By midday Tuesday, two of the three officers had been treated and released from hospital.
One remained at hospital, however, with a serious upper-body injury.
Police said the three police vehicles involved in the crash had serious damage.
Joseph Jordan Carl Choken, 19, Guy Wesley Vernon Stevenson, 21 and Amanda Kay Freeman, 23, face charges, including possession of restricted firearms. Choken had an outstanding warrant for arrest, and Stevenson is charged with three probation breaches and possessing a weapon contrary to a probation order.
The three were in custody Tuesday, said police. Freeman and Choken do not have prior criminal convictions.
However, Stevenson was found guilty in 2009 of uttering threats and possessing a prohibited or restricted firearm with ammunition, as well as a robbery and assault with a weapon.
— with file from Mike McIntyre
gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca